Blue Lotus Vegan Cooking School

We were excited to return to Evason Hua Hin and experience the plant based learning centre at Blue Lotus Hua Hin. Well, if we’re totally honest one of us was excited and the other was kind of jealous because they had to stay at home. As big fans of Six Senses and their commitment to wellness cuisine we had visited Evason Hua Hin previously so when the chance came to return we signed up quick fast even if it meant leaving one half of Vegan Food Quest at home. So here I am, Paul, all on my own on the coast of Thailand about to partake in a ‘weekend intensive’ Bakery Cafe Workshop. I would be making cakes, cookies and all manner of sweet delights all on my own. How would I survive without my plant based partner I hear you ask? Well, I would get to eat everything without sharing which is a positive if you ask me. But maybe that makes me greedy and selfish…?

Day 1 at Blue Lotus Hua Hin

Walking back into the professional and pristine kitchen at Blue Lotus was nice, really nice, it was good to be back for sure. However, finding out that I was to have an exclusive ‘one on one’ tutorial from Chef Laura Castro was exciting but a little daunting. What if my knife skills weren’t up to scratch? What if I asked any stupid questions? What if I was proved to be a fraud and didn’t know the first thing about plant based cuisine? Straight away all of my trepidation was gone, they were listening to (decent) music when I entered and they all seemed to me having fun. I knew I was going to enjoy my experience from that moment forwards.

Let me make it clear that Laura is passionate about what she does, that passion is impossible to ignore and her bubbly and effervescent personality makes spending time in the kitchen with her lots of fun. Of course she couldn’t do it on her own, to her side the whole time is Khun Wan (or Khun Juanita as Laura calls her) who assists, suggests and corrects throughout the whole course. Laura hersef said that she couldn’t do it without her. We started by making plant based cream cheese with tofu and cashews which will be used in a banana cream pie and tacos that we will complete tomorrow. The biscotti that we made were divine and the cookies for the tiramisu were so good we’re lucky there were any left to actually form an integral part of this Italian inspired dessert.

With a little bit of help (actually, with a whole lot of help) our trio of tiramisus looked outstanding, we were firing on all cylinders (in between talking about life, travel, food and families) and before we knew it the first day was over.

Day 2 at Blue Lotus Hua Hin

The following day started bright and early after a quick breakfast at Evason Hua Hin. As you would hope, the luxury resort that Blue Lotus calls home is vegan friendly, in fact it is very vegan friendly with a ‘vegan corner’ at breakfast and vegan dishes clealry marked on the menus. Here is our review of Evason Hua Hin from a previous trip. Trust us when we say this is one of the most vegan friendly luxury resorts you are ever likely to stay at…

Today was all about completing the ‘Banana Cream Pie’ using the cream cheese and peanut butter cookies we had made the day before and making our lunch which was to be a trio of tacos. The cream cheese was combined with ripe bananas and vanilla extract and this was scooped into the crust made from cookies, oats and vegan butter. If i’m honest I would have happily eaten the banana cream straight out of the mixing bowl and the cookie crust straight out of the blender as both looked and smelled so damn fine. But i didn’t, I showed self control and waited until the pie was topped with a delightfully rich choclate ganache. OMG this was getting better by the minute.

We couldn’t just eat tiramisu and banana cream pie for lunch (well we could have I suppose?) so the trio of tacos added a fresh, vibrant and savoury element to our meal. The tacos were gluten free and filled with cream cheese, BBQ mushrooms, pineapple salsa and sour red cabbage. All of these elements combined perfectly to create a plate that looked appealing and tasted divine.

Wow, wow, wow lunch at Blue Lotus was amazing and we made it all oursleves!

Next time at Blue Lotus Hua Hin…

The below pictures are some of the wonderful plant based creations that come out of the kitchen at Blue Lotus Hua Hin and we can’t wait to have the chance to return and learn some more vegan culinary skills. We love the fact that as well as being super healthy, nutritious and delicious the food always looks so good too. The detailed and creative plating makes us fall in love with the food before we’ve even tasted it!

Thank you for the plant based inspiration!

I came away from Blue Lotus Hua Hin full of inspiration, ideas and positivity and was looking forward to getting back into the kitchen. A week on and i’ve made the vegan cream cheese and also the tacos which were both delicious. Next up is the tiramisu, thank you for the plant based inspiration to the whole team at Blue Lotus and of course Evason Hua Hin too, keep up the good work!